Frosted Horses
The intense cold upon the road affects horses by coating them, with white frost. Their perspiration congeals and covers them as one may see the grass covered in a November morning. Nature has dressed these horses warmly, and very often their hair may justly be called fur. They do not appear to suffer from the cold; they are never blanketed, and their stables are little better than open sheds. One of their annoyances is the congelation of their breath, and in the coldest weather the yemshicks are frequently obliged to break away the icicles that form around their horses’ mouths. I have seen a horse reach the end of a course with his nose encircled in a row of icy spikes, resembling the decoration sometimes attached to a weaning calf.
In a clear morning or evening of the coldest days the smoke from the chimneys in the villages rises very slowly. Gaining a certain height, it spreads out as if unable to ascend farther. It is always light in color and density, and when touched by the sun’s rays appears faintly crimsoned or gilded. Once when we reached a small hill dominating a village, I could see the cloud of smoke below me agitated like the ground swell of the ocean. I had only a moment to look upon it ere we descended to the level of the street.
I have not recorded the incidents of each day on the steppe in chronological order, on account of their similarity and monotony. Just one week after our departure from Barnaool we observed that the houses were constructed of pine instead of birch, and the country began to change in character. At a station where a fiery-tempered woman required us to pay in advance for our horses, we were only twenty versts from Tumen.
It is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and it is only a steppe (a thousand miles wide) between Tomsk and Tumen. Travelers from Irkutsk to St. Petersburg consider their journey pretty nearly accomplished on getting thus far along. The Siberians make light of distances that would frighten many Americans. “From Tumen you will have only sixteen hundred versts to the end of the railway,” said a gentleman to me one day. A lady at Krasnoyarsk said I ought to wait until spring and visit her gold mines. I asked their locality, and received the reply, “Close by here; only four hundred versts away. You can go almost there in a carriage, and will have only a hundred and twenty versts on horseback.”
The best portion of Tumen is on a bluff eighty or a hundred feet above the river Tura. The lower town spreads over a wide meadow, and its numerous windmills at once reminded me of Stockton, California. We happened to arrive on market day, when the peasants from the surrounding country were gathered in all their glory for purposes of traffic. How such a lot of merchandise of nearly every kind under the Siberian sun could find either buyer or seller, it is difficult to imagine. The market-place was densely thronged, but there seemed to be very little traffic in progress.
The population of Tumen is about twenty thousand, and said to be rapidly increasing. The town is prosperous, as its many new and well-built houses bear witness. It has shorn Tobolsk of nearly all her commerce, and left her to mourn her former greatness. It is about three hundred versts from the ridge of the Urals, and at the head of navigation on the Tura. Half a dozen steamers were frozen in and awaited the return of spring, their machinery being stored to prevent its rusting.
In the public square of Tumen there was a fountain, the first I saw in Siberia. Men, women, boys, and girls were filling buckets and barrels, which they dragged away on sleds.
When we returned from our drive, and were seated at dinner, the cook brought a quantity of “Tumen carpets” for sale. He used all his eloquence upon me, but in vain. These carpets were made by hand in the villages around Tumen, their material being goat’s hair. From their appearance I judged that a coarse cloth was “looped” full of thread, which was afterward cut to a plush surface. Some of the figures were quite pretty. These carpets can be found in nearly every peasant house in Western Siberia, where they are used as bed and table coverings, floor mats, and carriage robes.
From Tumen to Nijne Novgorod the post is in the hands of a company, and one can buy a ticket for any distance he chooses. We bought to Ekaterineburg, 306 versts, paying nine copecks a verst for each vehicle. At the stations it is only necessary to show the ticket, which will bring horses without delay. The company has a splendid monopoly, protected by an imperial order forbidding competition. The peasants would gladly take travelers at lower rates if the practice were permitted. The only thing they can do is to charter their horses to the company at about one-third the ticket prices. Alexander would make many friends among the people by curtailing the monopoly.
From the Tura the country became undulating as we approached the Urals, but we passed no rugged hills. A great deal of the road lay between double rows of birch trees, that serve for shade in summer and do much to prevent the drifting of snow in winter. Forests of fir appeared on the slopes, and were especially pleasing after the half-desolation of the steppe.
The villages had a larger and more substantial appearance, that indicated our approach to Europe. Long trains laden with freight from Perm, blocked the way and delayed us. A few collisions made our sleigh tremble, and in two instances turned it on its beam ends. We were ahead of the tea trains that left Irkutsk with the early snows, so that we passed few sledges going in our own direction. The second night found us so near Ekaterineburg that we halted a couple of hours for the double purpose of taking tea and losing time.
At the last station, about six in the morning, we were greeted with Christmas festivities. While we waited in the traveler’s room, two boys sung or chanted several minutes, and then begged for money. We gave them a few copecks, and their success brought two others, who were driven away by the smotretal. I was told that poor children have a privilege of begging in this manner on Christmas morning. There are many beggars in the towns and villages of the Urals, and in summer there is a fair supply of highwaymen. Several beggars surrounded our sleigh as we prepared to depart and seemed determined to make the most of the occasion.
The undulations of the road increased, and the fir woods became thicker as we approached Ekaterineburg, nestled on the bank of the Isset. Just outside the town we passed a large zavod, devoted to the manufacture of candles. An immense quantity of tallow from the Kirghese steppes undergoes conversion into stearine at this establishment, and the production supplies candles to all Siberia and part of European Russia.
As we entered the slobodka and descended rapidly toward the river, the bells were clanging loudly and the population was generally on its way to church. The men were in their best shoobas and caps, while the women displayed the latest fashions in winter cloaks. Several pretty faces, rosy from the biting frost, peered at the strangers, who returned as many glances as possible. Our yemshick took us to the Hotel de Berlin, and, for the first time in eighteen hundred versts, we unloaded our baggage from the sleighs. Breakfast, a bath, and a change of clothes prepared me for the sights of this Uralian city.
For sight-seeing, the time of my arrival was unfortunate. Every kind of work was suspended, every shop was closed, and nothing could be done until the end of the Christmas holidays. I especially desired to inspect the Granilnoi Fabric, or Imperial establishment for stone cutting, and the machine shop where all steam engines for Siberia are manufactured. But, as everything had yielded to the general festivities, I could not gratify my desire.
Ekaterineburg is on the Asiatic side of the Urals, though belonging to the European government of Perm. It has a beautiful situation, the Isset being dammed so as to form a small lake in the middle of the city. Many of the best houses overlook this lake, and, from their balconies, one can enjoy charming views of the city, water, and the dark forests of the Urals. The principal street and favorite drive passes at the end of the lake, and is pretty well thronged in fine weather. There are many wealthy citizens in Ekaterineburg, as the character of the houses will attest. I was told there was quite a rage among them for statuary, pictures, and other works of art. Special care is bestowed upon conservatories, some of which contain tropical plants imported at enormous expense. The population is about twenty thousand, and increases very slowly.